Enjoying going through the thread right now. Something you might find to be a worthy edition to your analysis of Marek's fight with Brood and your comprehensive charting of his power growth:
"He was fighting himself-but not in some flashback-inspired hallucination, where the Jedi and the Sith warred in him for control of his future. This time the fight was real, and his opponent was as joyously rich in the dark side as he had ever been." - The Force Unleashed.
You have the quote listed, but you could dive into the ramifications of Galen experiencing significant growth that propelled him well past the level of his prime-Darkside incarnation prior to that point upon shifting to a more neutral/Lightsided orientation ( though you cover this concept quite well and thoroughly on its own merits, the Maris scaling just helps to define the level of growth Galen experiences from this shift in perspective and likely continued to experience ).
Edit: Just finished up, have to say, this is probably the most comprehensive compilation of "power growth" quotes paired with excellent argumentation for what spurred on that growth for Starkiller that I've seen up to this point. Congratulations on that, going to definitely be recommending and referencing this thread in the future. :)
Somebody should make a thread compiling all of your exchanges in a single place. This back and forth gave me nostalgia for the old days of Star Wars debating prior to the Disney buyout. A fitting end to the hobby honestly, I only wish the scene was still lively enough that you two could've earned proper laudits for your debate. Know you gave this old tired soul a final thrill and smile at the least.
Admittedly, I haven't followed the battle forums closely for around a year now so my memory might be a bit foggy but I remember avidly following several debates by these users and enjoying their postings greatly. I appreciate the nomination ( and the vote! ) but feel like there are debaters with much broader knowledge bases than myself deserving of commendation. May try to attend to that here in the near future by making some Percy Jackson or Avatar threads ( both highly underrated verses with great communities ).
@thecloudatlas: Didn't know about this gem, mind if I add it to the Grievous vs Mace thread analyzing their LoE fight? I think it would add a lot for those who value that sort of author input.
@cj_the_dj: Take your time, similar to your point about Vader's "injury" I likely won't end up responding in this thread given how these kinds of discussions tend to expand to the point I don't think back and forth posts can really do them justice. Any of the points you make that are impactful enough to merit a response likely deserve their own breakdown or section on a broader thread anyways and can be attended to more efficiently and directly in that format ( if they are gotten to ).
@greysentinel365: If you'd like this moved back to GD just let me know, I only moved it here to prevent a nearly half a year old necro-bump on the front page.
@cj_the_dj: I acknowledge that it's a distinct possibility you may no longer be active on the site but I feel the need to address some of your points as I believe they are fundamentally lacking context and could potentially end up misleading people. If you end up seeing this, I apologize for not responding in a more timely manner, the sites I used in the past to quote the TFU novelizations had all been taken down around the time we were having this debate and I had resorted to using my physical copy to respond to your points. This proved to be quite annoying and time consuming compared to being able to instantly search through a pdf for a particular line or statement so I threw up my hands to a certain extent ( especially as I had been intending to take a step back from the site and debating in general around this time ). A friendly user recently provided me a link to another pdf version and I have some free time so I thought I'd respond to some of your points.
How are they the same thing? We have no clue how it all works mechanically - it could be that only a small amount of energy is needed to destabalise the cannon enough that it hits Starkiller's intended target. You seem to very much be missing the point that the feat isn't one of supplying a power deficit, but, rather, the word "overloading"implies Galen is upsetting the balance of the already existing energies. As I said last post, we know he's not supplying the energy needed to destroy the factory itself, so the "feat" - if it can be called that - is unquantifiable.
Per the comic, they don't end up having time to carry out the redirection process so how it works "mechanically" doesn't actually matter. Considering we see Starkiller "overloading" the cannon via providing an excess of energy via his Force Lightning, I don't see how this would be indicative of Starkiller attempting to remedy an "imbalance."
But, and forgive me if my lackluster knowledge regarding ships means that this point is nonsense, the hyperdrive is used to jump to lightspeed, no? Hence why such powerful gravity wells would be needed to stop it, but we have no evidence the ISD ever tried to do anything of the sort.
Hyperdrive engines are capable of providing propulsion for ships without actually entering into hyperspace or surpassing relativistic speeds as we see during Galen's second mission to Raxus Prime in the TFU novel that you have claimed to have read several times:
"He gathered the energy and directed it down his arms, into his hands. Blue light strobed across his vision as the lightning flowed into the wires and from there into the hyperdrive turbines. Groaning, then shrieking, the massive engine came alive. Damaged, completely out of alignment, and barely controllable, the turbine shook with propulsive power, then strained against the braces still holding it to the corvette's warped chassis. The deck kicked underneath the apprentice. He swayed as the entire corvette shifted. With a terrible sound, it began to move, plowing a brutal furrow through the surrounding rubbish. He could picture it clearly in his imagination and through the vibrant flow of the Force. As lightning poured through him and into the engine, it pushed the stricken corvette physically out of his path. The way to the Temple was now clear. When he sensed that it had gone far enough, he relaxed his concentration. Smaller discharges of energy skittered across his skin. There was enough residual potential in the turbine to keep it running for dozens of seconds. He had to get out of the corvette before it dragged him any farther from his goal." - The Force Unleashed.
I have to admit, I find it somewhat funny you were unaware of this considering your next statement has you claiming that the ISD Starkiller brought down on Raxus Prime didn't possess engines but instead moved itself via its "Class One hyperdrive." Apologies if I'm mistaken on that being your belief, but if you didn't believe it was the hyperdrive that allowed it do so, how did you think the Star Destroyer was "directing" and moving itself towards Starkiller and his position in the first place? At that point, your belief would seemingly have to be that "while the engines weren't fully installed" in the ISD they were installed to the extent that they gave it the ability to control and direct its movements in pursuit of Galen ( something which happens in all versions of the game as well ).
The scaffolding around the nearly completed Star Destroyer had bent and torn completely away, leaving the ship free to power down into the atmosphere of Raxus Prime. Already it was visible as a distinct triangle glowing orange around its leading edges and conning tower. It was coming directly toward him. It was aiming for him." - The Force Unleashed.
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"The Star Destroyer didn't appear to have moved much in the sky. It was still coming in low on the horizon, aiming to pass over him and strafe him from above." - The Force Unleashed.
Incorrect. In the games it is depicted as having active engines, but in both the novel and the comic it is not:
The comic does not comment on whether the ISD has active engines or not, merely showing it to be damaged as it's coming down. Multiple game versions and the novel itself depict or describe the ISD Starkiller brought down as being damaged while still possessing active engines/hyperdrives regardless.
Nearly sixteen hundred meters long and capable of carrying a crew in excess of thirty-seven thousand, the ship was a familiar design. Its engines and armament weren't fully installed, but its Class One hyperdrive would have taken it anywhere in the Empire at speed, there to deploy walkers, fighters, barges, and shuttles. Armed with a host of turbolaser and ion cannons, plus no less than ten tractor beams, it could have blockaded an entire system on its own. The reinforced durasteel hull was solid enough to rip a gouge in Raxus Prime that might take centuries to fill. Scavenger droids would have a field day when it came down. Wherever it went down...
Credit: The Force Unleashed Novelization
The quote you yourself provided describes the ISD as being "armed with a host of turbolaser and ion cannons, plus no less than ten tractor beams" despite "its engines and armaments" not being fully installed, while it was actively attempting to fire on Starkiller. While its systems may not have been "fully installed" that doesn't mean it was bereft of capabilities entirely in either its armaments or engines.
...which aligns with the fact that throughout the feat Starkiller mentions he has to contend with "the growing forces of fiction and the shifting center of its gravity", but never mentions fighting against its engines. The quotes you posted don't contradict this - it can be aimed at him, and he can have to deal with its momentum without it actually having active engines.
Pray tell, how would it "aim" at him or even "power down" towards him in the first place then, let alone angle itself so as to be able to strafe him?
The scaffolding around the nearly completed Star Destroyer had bent and torn completely away, leaving the ship free to power down into the atmosphere of Raxus Prime. Already it was visible as a distinct triangle glowing orange around its leading edges and conning tower. It was coming directly toward him. It was aiming for him." - The Force Unleashed.
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"The Star Destroyer didn't appear to have moved much in the sky. It was still coming in low on the horizon, aiming to pass over him and strafe him from above." - The Force Unleashed.
I misremembered the novelization - having looked back it doesn't seem as though whether or not he fell unconscious is made clear. However, this is largely a technicality
There's nothing to suggest he does at all. It was a fiction created by people seeking to lowball the feat. Glad I could get you to publicly acknowledge that there's no actual evidence for it though. :)
and misses the point of what I was arguing. It ignores my claim regarding narrative weight, and also the fact that - regardless of whether he did actually fall unconscious - he was blatantly close to it:
Sparks danced in front of his eyes. The edges of his vision faded to black. Light and dark swirls spun around him, wraithlike. He felt momentarily faint and wondered if it was possible to dissolve into the Force. He was a speck caught in the updraft over a forest fire - yet somehow he had the audacity to try to command the fire to do his will.
[...]
But his name had survived, and names had power. The apprentice clutched at it with desperation, needing to regain control of the Star Destroyer lest it tear itself apart and disperse the impact. He needed to find his focus again, to ignore the feeling of dissolution eating at the edges of his self, and to tip the balance of power back toward him.
[...]
Abandoning his control over the ship, knowing there was nothing now that he could do to alter its course, the apprentice staggered backward, dazed. The Force fled from him, leaving him wrung out and drained.
Credit: The Force Unleashed Novelization
"Feeling momentarily faint" or "wrung out and drained" and passing out are two far different things. After accomplishing the feat with the Salvation and its cannon, we see Starkiller literally black out and wake up to Rebel forces having established beachheads and made progress in their assault on Kamino. Here, we don't even see him briefly pass out for a few seconds before shooting back to his feet. He would obviously be drained far more in one instance than the other...
You're joking, right? Stop mixing mediums to give yourself the best possible interpretation. The "powering of the cannon"(lol) only happened in the comic where Starkiller re-directed a falling ISD with a hole blown through it. In the games (the most favourable version of the ISD feat where he has to contend with the engines), Galen didn't have to do anything of the sort.
The ISD in the comic is damaged but there is nothing to suggest it is in any way less outfitted or capable than the versions of the ship from either the games or novel. For someone who claims that the ISD Starkiller brought down was damaged in the other versions as well ( it wasn't ) you should have no issue at all applying consistent details of both the original version of The Force Unleashed ( the game ) and the version confirmed to possess higher canonical status over other depictions ( the novel ) to the least popular least known version which doesn't actually back up the point you're attempting to make ( the comic ). Makes your accusation of using "versions favorable to your argument" seem like a hypocritical attempt to accuse their opponent of doing exactly what you yourself just did. You wouldn't do something like that, would you CJ?
But if you accept that the Core isn't a planet-wide object, I don't see how it means his abilities have a planetary range. Care to explain?
The Core is explicitly a planet-wide entity, I was simply acknowledging your point that I wouldn't necessarily see the feat as indicative of Starkiller being able to destroy a planet-wide object at that point since he merely spread his lightning across the planet in order to fry it. If you meant "destroy the objects that the Core's intelligence was preserved in which were spread across the planet" then yes, he clearly did so.
Your assessment of the fight doesn't contradict my own, nor is my framing inaccurate. Here's what I said: "The Emperor is the final threat Starkiller faces, the one who orchestrated the entire plot of TFU, and Galen barely manages to hold him off - he staggers through his lightning, clings on for dear life, and then blows up."
The framing is inaccurate for the fact that it does not in any way acknowledge Sidious's own struggles or desperation during the fight and that Galen "blowing up" was a result of his sacrifice and lowering of defenses as opposed to merely being overwhelmed by Sidious's power in the timeframe you imply. It's highly dishonest.
In order for this argument to have merit you need to actually, you know, provide evidence...
His unbalancing of the Force in conjunction with Plagueis dwarfs any physical feat in Star Wars in terms of energy output. That and his scaling over the Ambria ritual and all other members of the Banite line along with his Sith/Darkside supremacy quotes.
Bro, let's not be pretending crushing bull rancors is the same as splitting moons (lol). And, yes, the most reasonable interpretation of a line like that is hyperbole.
Again, Bull Rancors have been shown to be impervious to lightabers, along with Galen's lightning not too long before Kashyyyk and his second mission to Raxus Prime. Given Starkiller's other feats, I don't see why it should be.
Ah yes, I forgot that everything that seems to show Starkiller's limits is a result of exhaustion...
Ah, yes, I forgot that every time Starkiller is explicitly noted to be; tired, exhausted, injured, hampered, drained, fatigued, starved or sleep deprived it actually means he's fighting at full power unless it's mentioned every other sentence...
You're using the much more impressive cannon feat to argue that Galen was exhausted by the time of the destruction of The Salvation, despite the fact that it is entirely forgotten about (no fatigue is ever indicated), and that the latter is given far more narrative weight. There seems to be something wrong with your interpretation here
If someone manages to perform a world record deadlift of 1,000 pounds and doesn't show fatigue but is then shown struggling to lift a much lighter weight a little later, that should probably be indicative that they were affected by the previous lift... Not that there was an opportunity for that fatigue to be shown anyways considering the game transitions from the cutscene straight back to the game after it occurs. Interestingly though, you get an unmissable achievement for the event.
Obviously the ship's size is a component, given that it has to be big enough to wholly block the entrance - as to prevent him from going around it. However, by comparison to other warships it's small - the fact that it's described as a "corvette", by definition, necessitates that. Size doesn't exist in a vacuum, everything is relative.
I'm sure that not every single planet or system in a galaxy with billions of them is going to label their ships or class of ships in the same way. Regardless, Starkiller himself notes that he could not determine the "precise make" of the corvette with the only reference to its size being that the scavengers picking apart the ship made Starkiller think of beasts called "whaladons" ( the Star Wars equivalent for whales ) being scavenged and picked apart over the course of months.
"The Corellian corvette, its precise make rendered indeterminate by the damage it had sustained in the crash, was being sliced up for scrap, meter by meter, with delicate and therefore more valuable components removed before the cutting machines came in. The apprentice was put in mind of the creatures that fed on the bodies of whaladons when they drifted to the bottom of an ocean in months or even weeks there might be nothing left of the starship at all except the crater it had made on falling." - The Force Unleashed.
Just to save you some time, the game won't be of much help to you either. Across multiple versions, they actually have a significant portion of the second mission take place within the bowels of the ship and across multiple levels with the novel giving a similar description to the ship's interior.
"He hurried by, into the bowels of the corvette. A ramp had been added to aid the Jawas in their exploration and evisceration of the ship. It led up at a shallow angle into a stack of collapsed levels that had once been the crew midsection. He ran lightly along it, making no sound at all. Barely had he entered than an alarm went up-triggered not by him, but in response to a new influx of droids. The effect was the same. Every Rodian scavenger was on alert. His job instantly became that much more complicated. A herd of Jawas ran by, squeaking, their glowing yellow eyes flashing on and off. He let them go, not having a second to spare, and followed the most likely route to the hyperdrive. When a pair of Rodians stepped out of a hole in the wall ahead of him, he didn't give them a chance to raise their blasters. He sliced one in two while the other fell back clutching his throat. "Are you having fun down there?" came Juno's voice over the comlink.
"I'm making progress" - The Force Unleashed.
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"The wall of a junk canyon was gliding by, raining rubbish. With one smooth leap, he caught hold of dangling cable and swung free of the wreck. It roared on, dragging itself through the dregs of the galaxy on its disintegrating belly, sending waves of disturbed filth radiating out ward from its path." - The Force Unleashed.
Also, considering Starkiller even as of his second mission to Raxus Prime was capable of blowing a hole in the side of the corvette big enough for a TIE fighter to pass through, sending thousands of droids into the air with enough force to create an artificial hurricane and groundquake and casually mused about knocking down Paratus's replica temple, I don't see why he couldn't have "made his own entrance" into the temple so to speak.
"He blew a hole in the side of the downed ship wide enough for a TIE fighter to pass through." - The Force Unleashed.
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"There might have been thousands of them. Deactivating his lightsaber, he took a deep breath. With one mighty exhalation of power, he blasted all of them-those in pieces and those approaching with needle-tipped fingers and vibrosaws upraised-out of the foyer doors. Then he blasted the rubbish piles after them. He kept pushing until a dark cloud towered out over Raxus Prime's hideous landscape-an artificial hurricane full of droid golems. When the foyer was clear, the apprentice straightened. He was no longer pushing with the Force, but the floor beneath him shook nonetheless." - The Force Unleashed.
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"As they reached for orbit, he watched the Temple retreat behind him until the outline of its ludicrous grandeur was barely discernible among the surrounding junk hills. He could have knocked the ridiculous toy castle down around Kazdan's ears with one Force push. If only it had been so easy for his Master to erase the Jedi from the galaxy. Years after the Purge, here he was continuing that great work." - The Force Unleashed.
Comments like the one above are telling as to why Galen may have decided to power the corvette's hyperdrive as opposed to simply "making his own entrance" since it seems he could have collapsed the temple on Kazdan's head if he had wanted rather then dueling him personally. Comments like the following are also telling, I feel.
"The starship lay directly between him and the Temple and was far too big to get around. That could take him hours. He would have to either go through the starship, or move it. A slow smile crept across his face. Why be coy? He was the apprentice of Darth Vader and a servant of the dark side. It didn't pay to creep about in fear of raising his head." - The Force Unleashed.
Note: I didn't end up responding to your claim that Vader was hindered by his "injuries" as I feel the topic deserves a fuller breakdown which I plan to eventually address in the TFU misconceptions thread. Suffice it to say for now that Vader's flagging Force energy more likely came from fending off his son's rage fueled frenzy than the loss of a cybernetic limb that would not have lessened his connection to the Force as a result of lost midi-chlorians or decreased his focus as a result of pain.
Legends was consistently decent by the 90's post-Thrawn trilogy. Works mostly ranged from solid to good. Stuff like the RotS novelization was great. Sometimes content was poor. It was about what you'd expect from a multi-media franchise as big and long running as it was. Disney Star Wars is just trash through and through.
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